1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a new type of electrical receptacle for installation within a wall of a building. The receptacle is capable of swiveling along a vertical axis, allowing the receptacle face to move left or right in response to a pulling force exerted thereon by an attached electrical plug as the electrical plug is pulled on by its attached electrical cord.
2. Description of the Related Art
Employers of power equipment operators are required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to have their electrical equipment properly grounded. This requires operative grounded electrical receptacles and grounded electrical plugs for engaging the grounded electrical receptacles. For example professional office janitorial services, which vacuum carpeted office floors on a nightly basis, must frequently replace the electrical plugs on their vacuum cleaners. The reason the electrical plugs require frequent replacement is that employees using the equipment simply jerk on the electrical cord to disengage the electrical plug from the electrical receptacles in the office being cleaned. Unless the pulling force on the electrical cord is perpendicular to the face of the electrical receptacle, the rigid ground prong provided on the plug can be damaged by being bent, or alternately, can be snapped off when the plug is pulled out of the rigidly fixed electrical receptacle. Once the ground prong on the plug is thus damaged, the plug can no longer be used and must be replaced with a new plug. Although the two blade prongs provided on the plugs are also normally bent as a result of this pulling force, since they are somewhat flexible, they generally do not break when so bent and normally can be bent back into shape by the user so that the plug can subsequently be reinserted into another electrical receptacle. Also, the electrical receptacle can also be damaged when the plug is jerked out of engagement with the receptacle.
Although employees are advised not to jerk on the electrical cords to disengage the plugs, the problem continues because it is more convenient for the employees to disengage the plugs using this procedure. The ground plug may also be bent or broken accidentally and the receptacle may be damaged when the equipment operator attempts to go beyond the reach of the power cord.
Most of the solutions which have been proposed in order to address this problem employ some modification of the plug, such as a swivel provided on the plug or an extra length of easily disengagable cord employed between the electrical receptacle and the equipment plug. Although these proposed devices may provide some improvement in the incidence of damage to plugs and receptacles, they do not provide totally satisfactory solutions. The reason is that none of the proposed devices address the fundamental problem of having a pulling force exerted on a plug such that the pulling force is not perpendicular to the face of the electrical receptacle. More simply stated, the fundamental problem is that the prongs of the plug are not being pulled straight outward from the openings in the electrical receptacle in which they are removably engaged.
The present invention seeks to address the fundamental problem by providing an electrical receptacle capable of swivelling along a vertical axis in response to a pulling force applied directly on an engaged electrical plug or applied indirectly on an electrical cord attached to an engaged electrical plug. The present invention allows the face of the electrical receptacle to swivel, and thus, to align itself perpendicularly with the pulling force exerted on the engaged plug.